


News in Ossiriand

by AllonsyMiddleEarth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2374574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllonsyMiddleEarth/pseuds/AllonsyMiddleEarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When news of her parents’ death reaches Lúthien and Beren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	News in Ossiriand

It was some time before the news had reached them, but somehow Lúthien had known anyway that something was wrong. She’d woken up in the middle of the night and gone off into the woods, murmuring something about being alone, and her parents and terrible events in Doriath, and she’d looked so distraught that Beren hadn’t tried to stop her.  
  
When she didn’t return the next morning they all knew something terrible must have happened, but no one had suspected quite what news the messenger would bring when the news arrived.

  
“Lúthien?” Beren called when he reached the grove of trees where he knew she would be. Tracking her hadn’t been hard, but if she wanted time alone, he thought she could certainly use it before hearing what he had to say.   
  
“Here.” Her voice was ever musical and ethereal, even when it shook, full of sorrow and worry.   
  
“A messenger arrived just now, with news from Doriath…” He sat beside her.   
  
“They’re gone, aren’t they.” Lúthien stared ahead unblinkingly at a lone beam of sunlight in the dim forest, her eyes unfocused. “I knew when I felt it…  _how_  could this  _happen?”_  
  
“I’m sorry.” Beren took her hands in his and sighed, before recounting the barest of details of the story he could tell to get it all out but spare her the imagery he knew would follow anyway. “Your father had the Silmaril set in the Nauglamír. The dwarves laid claim to it when they finished it, and your father told them they had no claim to it, so they were angry, and-”   
  
“They killed him because of the Silmaril?” Lúthien interrupted hoarsely. “This was our fault, we never should have brought it to him, we could have found another way…”   
  
“This wasn’t our fault.” Beren answered softly. “It was the dwarves who…”   
  
“Not the dwarves. It was the Silmaril, it caused all of this.” Lúthein shook her head tearfully, and Beren could feel her hands shaking as they clenched his. “Go on. What else did the messenger say? My mother is gone too, if Adar is gone, I know there is no way she could still be here. She must be… I don’t know where, but in Valinor, I suppose. She can’t go to Mandos.”   
  
Beren could only nod. He didn’t understand Ainur powers like Lúthien would, but with Melian’s fëa tied to Thingol’s, and her grief at losing him, he supposed her fëa didn’t have the strength to remain in her elven form and world, even if she could have.  
  
“I am so sorry.” Beren told her again.   
  
“I’ve spent every moment since I knew imagining what could have happened…” Lúthien murmured. “It’s better to know than to wonder.”   
  
"I am going out to pursue the Dwarves that escaped with the Nauglamír. I think Dior wishes to come with me." Beren told her.  
  
“And then Dior will go to Doriath.” Lúthien said, her voice more steady than before, after a long pause.   
  
“Yes.”  
  
“He is the best hope for the people of Doriath right now, I just hope they’re strong enough without my mother’s protection to face what will come. I fear things will only worsen.”  
  
“They still have you.” Beren said. “Will you go back? I know you didn’t want to, but after this…”   
  
“After this, I certainly can not. Look at me, how I’ve aged? I no longer look like the ageless half-Ainu princess they all knew, and after our people just losing my parents…” Her voice broke slightly. “I don’t think my people will feel better for seeing me now.”   
  
Beren did look at her. She hardly looked different to him than she ever had, and certainly much younger than any of the Secondborn would at this age. But she didn’t look purely like the Firstborn anymore, either. Her hair, while still a deep black, was streaked with gray that elves were unaccustomed to, and her skin was still as soft as ever, but there were signs of age lines around her eyes that keen elf eyes would not miss.   
  
“Perhaps. But what about you? If going back would help you…”   
  
Lúthien shook her head resolutely. “No, I will not. But if you are leaving soon, and then Dior and Nimloth and the grandchildren for Doriath, we should go be with them now.”   
  
Lúthien stood slowly and Beren followed, and it wasn’t until much later that evening he realized that Lúthien had never really answered his question about whether going back would have helped her.


End file.
